THE SWALLOW'S STONE. 283 



stones,' and to examine them. I found them to be the 

 hard polished calcareous opercula of some species of 

 Ttirbo, and although their worn state precludes the idea 

 of identifying the species, yet I am confident that they be- 

 long to no European Turbo. The largest I have seen was 

 three-eighths of an inch long, and one-fourth of an inch 

 broad ; one side is flat, or nearly so, and the other is 

 convex, more or less so in different specimens. Their 

 peculiar shape enables one to push them under the eye- 

 lid across the eyeball, and thus they remove any eye- 

 lash or other foreign substance which may have got in 

 one's eye ;* further than this, they have no curing power : 

 the peasants, however, believe they are omnipotent. The 

 presence of these opercula in swallows' nests is very 

 curious,-f- and leads one to suppose that they must have 

 been brought there from some distant shore in the 

 swallow's stomach. If so, they must have inhabited the 

 poor bird for a considerable time, and proved a great 

 nuisance to it." 



The tradition on this subject, current amongst the 

 peasants in Brittany, is no doubt of some antiquity,! since 



* One would suppose that such a foreign substance as a "swallow-stone" in 

 the eye would be much more inconvenient than the eyelash which it was destined 

 to remove. 



{ Curious, if true. Dr. Lebour does not say that he ever found such stones 

 himself, nor does he vouch for their having been found by others in the nests. 

 We have examined a great number of swallows' nests without being able to 

 discover anything of the kind. 



J Pliny makes mention of a " swallow-stone," but says nothing about its being 

 found in the nest. On the contrary, he says it is found in the stomach of the 



